Friday, March 03, 2017

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These are trying times, but they are also filled with intense resistance that gives us hope that a different future is possible. We must continue to work for a world of justice and peace. Berta Cáceres' visionary leadership and resistance during her life and the steadfast continuation of the struggle by her colleagues in COPINH inspires us to continue the long-term work of resisting U.S. empire and domination around the world, including stopping U.S. military aid and training in Honduras.

March 2nd marks the 1 year anniversary of the brutal assassination of Berta, and we encourage you to organize an event this March to remember Berta and call for an end to the U.S. militarization of Honduras. Berta's organization, COPINH has issued a call for actions around the world on March 2nd as well as for events throughout the month of March (Read Statement Here). We share a few ideas and possible dates, by no means all, here:

March 8 - International Women's Day: Show a film on Berta and her legacy - click here for some suggested videos/documentaries

March 27 - Anniversary of COPINH: Organize a protest against US military aid to Honduras

March ? - Participate in an protest in solidarity with refugees & migrants; bring posters of Berta to call attention to the U.S. role in creating forced migration from Honduras

We look forward to hearing your ideas and events you may be planning. Please contact us for contacts, materials, and information about your Representative/Senator's position or anything else you need to make an action, vigil, or event happen near your home. If you plan an event please let us know so we can share it. A number of organizations around the country are planning actions, and we'll be posting information on events already being planned in Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Chicago and other locations next week.

To get involved in this Call to Action, SOAW advocacy work (e.g. pushing to suspend US military/security aid to Honduras, or opposing the "Alliance for Prosperity"), or to be a part of the SOAW Honduras Solidarity Collective, please email me at arturo@soaw.org

Grassroots power works! Together we will challenge U.S. Imperialism in Honduras, which contributes so much to the forced migration of Honduran refugees, tramples on Native people's rights, and facilitates the destruction of the environment.

Berta Vive! La Lucha Sigue!

Arturo & Brigitte

SOA Watch

SOA Watch

We appreciate your interest! You are subscribed to the SOA Watch list as bauaw2003-owner@yahoogroups.com.Click here if you'd like to unsubscribe from these messages, or change your email address.The movement to close the SOA is a community, and all ideas are welcome.SOA Watch, 733 Euclid Street NW, Washington, DC 20001

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The 'Day Without a Woman' general strike is set for March 8thby Kwame Opam
February 15, 201http://www.theverge.com/2017/2/15/14624044/the-day-without-a-woman-general-strike-march-8-international-womens-day

The Day Without a Woman strike is now set for March 8th, International Women's Day. Organizers for last month's Women's March on Washington set the date for women across supportive communities to collectively stop working that day to protest White House policies and legislation.

Women's March announced plans for a general strike last month in the wake of the mass protests that followed President Donald Trump's inauguration. The announcement for the strike comes via Instagram, calling for communities to "unite" for gender equity and against oppression:

In the spirit of women and their allies coming together for love and liberation, we offer A Day Without A Woman. We ask: do businesses support our communities, or do they drain our communities? Do they strive for gender equity or do they support the policies and leaders that perpetuate oppression? Do they align with a sustainable environment or do they profit off destruction and steal the futures of our children? We saw what happened when millions of us stood together in January, and now we know that our army of love greatly outnumbers the army of fear, greed and hatred. On March 8th, International Women's Day, let's unite again in our communities for A Day Without A Woman. Over the next few weeks we will be sharing more information on what actions on that day can look like for you. In the meantime, we are proud to support Strike4Democracy's #F17 National Day of Action to Push Back Against Assaults on Democratic Principles. This Friday, February 17th, gather your friends, families, neighbors, and start brainstorming ideas for how you can enhance your community, stand up to this administration, integrate resistance and self-care into your daily routine, and how you will channel your efforts for good on March 8th. Remember: this is a marathon, not a sprint. #DayWithoutAWoman#WomensMarch

National March and Rally

Support Palestine in D.C.! Protest AIPAC!

Sunday, March 26 - Gather 12 Noon

March from the White House to the Convention Center

At last year's AIPAC conference, Donald Trump made an outrageous pledge: "We will move the American embassy to the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem ... The Palestinians must come to the table knowing that the bond between the United States and Israel is absolutely, totally unbreakable." Now that he is the president, Trump seems dead set on following through on his promise.

This would be an extreme provocation that tramples on the Palestinian right to self-determination. Every progressive person needs to mobilize to stop this.

In the short time since Trump took the oath of office, the Israeli government has already announced thousands of new illegal settler homes in the Palestinian territories seized in the 1967 war. The Palestinian people need our solidarity now more than ever as they resist these wanton acts of aggression.

From Palestine to Mexico, all the walls have got to go!

Just like Trump is encouraging Israel to step up its violation of Palestinian rights, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is cheer leading for Trump's extreme right agenda. On Jan. 28, Netanyahu sent this outrageous tweet:

The fight for justice for Palestine and the fight to stop the Trump Agenda are one in the same!

Join the National Rally and March on Sunday, March 26

Al-Awda, The Palestine Right To Return Coalition and the ANSWER Coalition will once again spearhead this National Rally to Support Palestine in DC 2017!

This rally will start at the White House with thousands of people from across the nation and around the world, and end up in front of AIPAC's annual convention! AIPAC is the primary organization lobbying to continue the brutal illegal occupation of Palestine for over 68 years.

We must protest to end this outrageous lobby that ultimately supports the oppression and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. Please come out and support the Palestinian people in their noble struggle to be free.

Saturday, April 29 at 9 AM EDT

Join us April 29th in Washington, DC to let Trump know that we won't let him destroy the environment on our watch. There is no denying it: Donald Trump's election is a threat to the future of our pla...

John T. Kaye and Dave Schubert are going.

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Rasmea Defense Committee statement - December 21, 2016

Rasmea retrial set for May 16, 2017

Support the defense now!

This morning, Rasmea Odeh and her defense attorney Michael Deutsch were called into Judge Gershwin Drain's courtroom in Detroit, where the judge and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Tukel were in attendance. The parties all agreed on May 16, 2017, as the new starting date for Rasmea's retrial.

The defense committee will continue to send regular updates regarding any pre-trial hearings or other appearances that Rasmea must make between now and the retrial, as well as requests to participate in regular defense organizing and activities.

In addition, we urge supporters to continue tocall U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade at 313-226-9100,
or tweet @USAO_MIE
and demand that she stop wasting taxpayer money, that she stop persecuting a woman who has given so much to U.S. society, and that she #DropTheChargesNow against Rasmea.

Lastly, and in the spirit of the season, please help us win #Justice4Rasmea by making your end-of-year donation to the defense fund! We thank you all for your continued support!

Background info

Statement from Tuesday, December 13

U.S. Attorney extends political attack on Rasmea, brings new indictment against the Palestinian American

Today, U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade announced that a grand jury she had empaneled returned a new, superseding indictment against Rasmea Odeh for unlawful procurement of naturalization. This new indictment, just four weeks before her retrial, is a vicious attack by prosecutors desperate after a series of setbacks in their case against the Chicago-based Palestinian American community leader. From the outset, the government has attempted to exclude and discredit evidence of Rasmea's torture at the hands of Israeli authorities, but the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the prosecution, which led to the retrial; and the government's own expert affirmed that Rasmea lives with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Knowing that it faces the real prospect of losing a retrial before a jury, the U.S. Attorney's office has reframed its case against Rasmea, putting allegations of terrorism front and center. In the first trial in 2014, prosecutors were barred from using the word "terrorism," because Judge Gershwin Drain agreed the word would bias the jury. The new indictment adds two allegations that preclude this protection: first, that the crimes she was forced by torture to confess to are "terrorist activity"; and second, that she failed to report an alleged association with a "Designated Terrorist Organization." Despite the government's claim that this is a simple case of immigration fraud, this new indictment is written to ensure that Rasmea stands before a jury as an accused terrorist.

The Rasmea Defense Committee is urging supporters to call U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade at 313-226-9100, or tweet @USAO_MIE, and demand that she stop wasting taxpayer money, that she stop persecuting a woman who has given so much to U.S. society, and that she #DropTheChargesNow against Rasmea. In addition, the committee is calling on supporters to help win #Justice4Rasmea by donating to the defense and organizing educational events about the case.

"They [the prosecutors] are switching course because they know that a jury will believe Rasmea," says Nesreen Hasan of the Rasmea Defense Committee and its lead organization, the U.S. Palestinian Community Network. "We have always said, from day one, that this is a political case, and that the government is prosecuting Rasmea as part of a broader attack, the criminalization of the Palestine liberation movement. This new indictment is literally the same charge, with the same evidence - immigration forms. Only now, they want to paint Rasmea, and all Palestinians, as terrorists. The real criminals in this case are the Israelis who brutally tortured Rasmea 45 years ago, as well as those in the U.S. government who are trying to put her on trial for surviving the brutality committed against her."

Prosecutors will be disappointed to find that these new allegations fail to erode Rasmea's support. People have mobilized by the hundreds for countless hearings, every day of her 2014 trial, and her appeal earlier this year. "We have people ready to come from across the Midwest to stand with Rasmea in Detroit on January 10, but we are also prepared to adjust those plans to be there whenever we are needed," says Jess Sundin of the Committee to Stop FBI Repression, who lives in Minneapolis and has mobilized dozens of Minnesotans and others in support of the defense. "We will redouble our organizing and fundraising work, and make certain Rasmea has the best defense possible."

According to lead defense attorney Michael Deutsch, "We also intend to challenge this indictment as vindictive and politically-motivated."

PeoplesClimate.org website calls for a march on Washington on April 29, 2017, to "unite all our movements" for "communities," "climate," "safety," "health," "the rights of people of color, workers, indigenous people, immigrants, women, LGBTQIA, young people," and a much longer list . . . but not peace.

Approximately half of federal discretionary spending is going into wars and war preparation. This institution constitutes our single biggest destroyer of the environment. [One reason peace is an environmental issue - see others below.]

Will you please add "peace" to the list of things you are marching for?

NINE REASONS WHY THE ENVIRONMENTALMOVEMENT MUST ALSO FIGHT FOR PEACE:

1. War is an environmental nightmare that continues to poison people and the planet long after the fighting ends.

2. The Pentagon is the largest consumer of fossil fuels in the world.

3. The Pentagon is the largest emitter of CO2 gases in the world.

4. Wars are fought for oil and other energy resources. The U.S. drive for global hegemony is intimately bound up with its aim to control energy resources.

5. The military consumes 54% of all discretionary spending. War and preparation for war divert financial and human resources needed to meet social needs (including investment in renewable energy and a sustainable energy system).

6. The manufacture of arms and other military gear adds considerably to the carbon burden of the world.

7. The military-industrial complex is fully integrated with and dependent upon the fossil fuel energy complex, serving as its enforcer as well as its client.

8. To successfully address the climate crisis requires creating a sustainable new economy, but that is impossible so long as our economy remains dominated by the military-industrial-security-energy complex.

9. To achieve a just transition to a new sustainable economy will require the environmental movement see its connection to movements for social justice, economic justice and peace. The quest for peace is also a social justice struggle.

The environmental movement must stop avoiding the connection between our militarized foreign policy and the challenge of climate change.

The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC) is now in Contempt of Court

But on January 7, prison officials formally denied Mumia's grievances asking for the cure. This is after being informed twice by the court that denying treatment is unconstitutional.

John Wetzel, Secretary of the PA DOC, is refusing to implement the January 3rd Federal Court Order requiring the DOC to treat Mumia within 21 days. Their time has run out to provide Mumia with hepatitis C cure!

Mumia is just one of over 6,000 incarcerated people in the PA DOC at risk with active and chronic Hepatitis C. Left untreated, 7-9% of people infected with chronic hep C get liver cancer every year.

Water Crisis in the Prison

Drinking water remains severely contaminated at the prison in which Mumia and 2,500 others are held, SCI Mahanoy in Frackville, PA. Mumia filed a grievance regarding the undrinkable water: read it here.

We're sending our mailing to you, including this brilliant poster by incarcerated artist Kevin Rashid Johnson. Keep an eye out it next week!

Cuando luchamos ganamos! When we fight, we win!Noelle Hanrahan, Director

About the recently appealed Court victory:

On January 3rd, a federal court granted Mumia Abu-Jamal's petition for immediate and effective treatment for his Hepatitis-C infection, which has hitherto been denied him. The judge struck down Pennsylvania's protocols as "deliberate indifference to serious medical need."

This is a rare and important win for innocent political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal in a court system that has routinely subjected him to the "Mumia exception," i.e., a refusal of justice despite court precedents in his favor. Thousands of Hep-C-infected prisoners throughout Pennsylvania and the US stand to benefit from this decision, provided it is upheld.

But, it is up to us to make sure that this decision is not over-turned on appeal--something the State of Pennsylvania will most likely seek.

Hundreds demonstrated in both Philadelphia and Oakland on December 9th to demand both this Hep-C treatment for prisoners, and "Free Mumia Now!" In Oakland, the December 9th Free Mumia Coalition rallied in downtown and then marched on the OPD headquarters. The Coalition brought over two dozen groups together to reignite the movement to free Mumia; and now we need your support to expand and build for more actions in this new, and likely very dangerous year for political prisoners.

SHARE FAR & WIDE!

The Campaign To Bring Mumia Home

By Johanna Fernandez

Dear Friends of Mumia,

I'm writing on behalf of the Committee to Save Mumia Abu-Jamal to ask if you might help us in an emergency. The Committee is the official fundraising venue for Mumia's legal defense today. It has been raising funds, quietly, since Mumia was facing execution in the '90s.

The Committee was initiated and led by Frances Goldin, Mumia's literary agent. She is 93 years old today and continues to be actively involved in this work. Our letters are reviewed and signed by Angela Davis. Our efforts focus exclusively on Mumia's legal defense, and on the few occasions when we've deemed that raising funds for other projects was critical to Mumia's safety, our letters have explicitly outlined our thinking.

Since Mumia fell ill, we have been behind on payments to Mumia's lead health attorney and we need to raise funds – quickly. Would you consider making a donation and identifying one or two others who might do the same?

A Word on Mumia's Condition

Although the symptoms of his Hep C condition wax and wane, he is much improved since his near death crisis two years ago. That moment was harrowing, and having been in the center of it, I can truly tell you that the movement saved his life.

Heidi Beghosian, former executive director, National Lawyers Guild, and I had been concerned about Mumia's declining health two years ago, and we happened to visit Mumia the morning that he collapsed in the infirmary. At that moment, we called his family, identified the hospital to which he had been taken, then drove there to make our presence known.

Since Mumia fell ill, we have been behind on payments to Mumia's lead health attorney and we need to raise funds – quickly. Would you consider making a donation and identifying one or two others who might do the same?

We alerted the movement, and dozens joined us at the hospital that evening. The next day we held a press conference at the hospital to which surprisingly the Philadelphia mainstream media showed up. The conditions under which Mumia was hospitalized were horrendous and we visited the hospital daily.

After these dramatic days, when we realized that Mumia was in danger of dying, we went into emergency mode for several months. This included identifying outside doctors to visit him, taking out an ad in the New York Times, mobilizing the movement and testifying in court about what we saw.

We even took Mumia's hair sample covertly to be tested at an outside laboratory. It was our doctor, not the hospital physicians, who in the end diagnosed Mumia with Hep C and made the connection that his terrible skin condition was a symptom of that disease. In this moment of crisis, Pam Africa's experience was indispensable.

The Legal Situation and Our Request for Funds

As you know, his attorneys, primarily Bob Boyle, scored an unprecedented legal victory in Mumia's Hep C health suit. On Jan. 7, a federal judge, Robert Mariani, in an unprecedented decision, ordered that Mumia be treated with the 95 percent effective cure rate antiviral medicines within 21 days. He condemned the barbarity of the DOC's (Department of Corrections') Hep C protocol, and his opinion establishes the groundwork for the treatment of the 7,000 others with Hep C in the Pennsylvania prisons.

The Pennsylvania DOC is fighting this all the way to hell. On the 10th day after the ruling, right before the Martin Luther King holiday, the DOC attorneys filed a stay and a notice of appeal in the 3rd Circuit District Court of Appeals.

Our legal filings are voluminous. Bob Boyle has been working for two years at reduced legal fees, and we are behind on payments. He has literally had to borrow money to stay afloat. We've also put in some personal funds, and are sending out another appeal to our members, but we need an infusion of $25,000 in the next week.

His attorneys, primarily Bob Boyle, scored an unprecedented legal victory in Mumia's Hep C health suit. The Pennsylvania DOC is fighting this all the way to hell.

Thanking you in advance for your consideration.

All the best,

Johanna Fernandez, Ph.D.

Johanna Fernandez, Ph.D., is a professor of history at Baruch College (CUNY,) coordinator of the Campaign to Bring Mumia Home, member of the Committee to Save Mumia Abu Jamal, and writer and producer of the acclaimed film, "Justice on Trial: The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal." She can be reached at jfernandez1202@gmail.com.________________________________________________________________________

Legal Particulars

Federal Judge Robert Mariani presided over Mumia's health suit. Judge Mariani granted Mumia his claim of deliberate indifference, meaning that Mumia won the preliminary injunction for immediate treatment. The judge ordered that a Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC) doctor must see Mumia within 14 days of his Jan. 7 ruling and instructed that treatment begin seven days after that – in other words, within 21 days of the ruling.

But on the 10th day after the ruling, right before the Martin Luther King holiday, the DOC lawyers filed a challenge to the judge's ruling. They filed "a stay," which essentially asked the judge to halt all legal actions and proceedings. The DOC attorneys also filed a separate notice of appeal that made known their intention to appeal the decision in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which is the court immediately below the Supreme Court.

Here are the different scenarios that can emerge.

If Judge Mariani denies the stay and upholds his original decision, the DOC can seek a stay from the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals. This would happen in advance and separately from the DOC's full appeal in that court. If the 3rd Circuit grants the stay, the appeal process could take two to three months, even if "expedited." If the 3rd Circuit denies the DOC's request for a stay, Mumia basically wins because it would mean that the injunction must be carried out, meaning that MAJ gets the drugs.

If Judge Mariani grants the DOC's request for a stay, Mumia's attorneys can ask the 3rd Circuit to vacate (overturn) the stay; however, it would be unlikely that the 3rd Circuit would do so since they would take Judge Mariani granting the stay as an indicator that he feels his ruling would not withstand an appeal. We then would have to litigate the appeal in the 3rd Circuit Court, again a two to three month process.

Profile of the Attorneys Litigating Mumia's Health Suit

Bret Grote is a young attorney and the founder of the Abolitionist Law Center in Pittsburgh. He was the only lawyer willing to file a preliminary injunction to get Mumia immediate treatment after he fell ill. All the attorneys with whom we consulted argued that the case was impossible to litigate and win. Shortly after Bret Grote filed the motion, the movement recruited Bob Boyle to join Bret Grote.

Bob Boyle is one of the most noted and accomplished attorneys representing political prisoners today. He is comparable to Len Weinglass in his political analysis of these cases. Bob Boyle

litigated the Lynne Stewart case, which led to her compassionate release;

litigated the case of Black Panther Dhoruba Bin Wahad and secured his freedom;

secured the release of Black Panther Marshall Eddie Conway, who spent close to 43 years in prison;

overturned in appellate court the 75-year sentence of Mohammed Al-Moayad, who was convicted of providing material support to Hamas.

How to Donate

"Prison is a second-by-second assault on the soul, a day-to-day degradation of the self, an oppressive steel and brick umbrella that transforms seconds into hours and hours into days."-Mumia Abu-Jamal

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Chelsea Manning'sWelcome Home Fund

From Chelsea Manning's attorney Chase Strangio: This is the official campaign raising funds for Chelsea Manning. This campaign is being organized by her friends and family. I have known Chelsea as her attorney, advocate and friend for several years. The money will be deposited directly into her bank account, which is being managed by her current power of attorney. Upon her release on May 17th, she will have full control over all funds donated.

Chelsea inspired me, and her actions forever changed my life. I remember watching the Apache helicopter video of American soldiers gunning down unarmed people in Iraq, including a Reuters journalist and two children. It fundamentally changed how I saw America's overseas wars. ... It boggles the mind to think how far we came with the Chelsea Manning Support Network. In some ways, we were squaring off against the United States government itself, with its seemingly infinite resources... Read more

From Courage to Resist

We are extremely proud to have served as fiscal manager for the Chelsea Manning Defense Fund for nearly seven years. Those funds provided Chelsea a legal defense team at trial, funded most of her appeals, supported hundreds of events worldwide, and in the end, was immensely important to winning Chelsea's freedom.
Chelsea Manning Defense Fund fiscal reports available include our summary of the first 18 months of the appeals phase (Jan. 2014 – Jun. 2015) [PDF LINK], as well as the pretrial and trial history (Jul. 2010-Dec. 2013) [PDF LINK]. The final report covering the most recent (and last) 18 months is forthcoming. That, along with other news and updates about Chelsea, will be available at couragetoresist.org.
In a nutshell, the Defense Fund as a positive balance of approximately $10,000, and we'll be disbursing that money soon, in consultation with Chelsea. Courage to Resist has provided significant material support to about 50 military objectors since our founding over ten years ago; however, our efforts in support of Chelsea easily eclipse all of our other campaigns.

Protect Kevin "Rashid" Johnson from Prison Repression!

PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY

On December 21, 2016, Kevin "Rashid" Johnson was the victim of anassault by guards at the Clements Unit where he is currently being held,just outside Amarillo, Texas. Rashid was sprayed with OC pepper gaswhile handcuffed in his cell, and then left in the contaminated cell forhours with no possibility to shower and no access to fresh air. It wasin fact days before he was supplied with new sheets or clothes (his bedwas covered with the toxic OC residue), and to this day his cell has notbeen properly decontaminated.

This assault came on the heels of another serious move against Rashid,as guards followed up on threats to confiscate all of his property – notonly files required for legal matters, but also art supplies, cups todrink water out of, and food he had recently purchased from thecommissary. The guards in question were working under the direction ofCaptain Patricia Flowers, who had previously told Rashid that sheintended to seize all of his personal belongings as retaliation for hiswritings about mistreatment of prisoners, up to and including assaultsand purposeful medical negligence that have led to numerous deaths incustody. Specifically, Rashid's writings have called attention to thedeaths of Christopher Woolverton, Joseph Comeaux, and Alton Rodgers, andhe has been contacted by lawyers litigating on behalf of the families ofat least two of these men.

As a journalist and activist literally embedded within the bowels of theworld's largest prison system, Rashid relies on his files and notes forcorrespondence, legal matters, and his various news reports.Furthermore, Rashid is a self-taught artist of considerable talent (hiswork has appeared in numerous magazines, newspapers, and books);needless to say, the guards were also instructed to seize his artmaterials and the drawings he was working on.

(For a more complete description of Rashid's ordeal on and followingDecember 21, see his recent article "Bound and Gassed: My Reward forExposing Abuses and Killings of Texas Prisoners" athttp://rashidmod.com/?p=2321)

Particularly worrisome, is the fact that the abuse currently directedagainst Rashid is almost a carbon-copy of what was directed againstJoseph Comeaux in 2013, who was eventually even denied urgently neededmedical care. Comeaux died shortly thereafter.

This is the time to step up and take action to protect Rashid; and theonly protection we can provide, from the outside, is to make sure prisonauthorities know that we are watching. Whether you have read hisarticles about prison conditions, his political or philosophicalpolemics (and whether you agreed with him or not!), or just appreciatehis artwork – even if this is the first you are hearing about Rashid –we need you to step up and make a few phone calls and send some emails.When doing so, let officials know you are contacting them about KevinJohnson, ID #1859887, and the incident in which he was gassed and hisproperty confiscated on December 21, 2016. The officials to contact are:

* That Kevin Johnson's cell be thoroughly decontaminated

* That measures be taken to ensure that whistleblowers amongst staff andthe prisoner population not be targeted for any reprisals from guards orother authorities. (This is important because at least one guard andseveral prisoners have signed statements asserting that Rashid was leftin his gassed cell for hours, and that his property should not have beenseized.)

Try to be polite, while expressing how concerned you are for KevinJohnson's safety. You will almost certainly be told that because otherpeople have already called and there is an ongoing investigation – orelse, because you are not a member of his family -- that you cannot begiven any information. Say that you understand, but that you still wishto have your concerns noted, and that you want the prison to know thatyou will be keeping track of what happens to Mr Johnson.

The following other authorities should also be contacted. These bodiesmay claim they are unable to directly intervene, however we know that bycreating a situation where they are receiving complaints, they willeventually contact other authorities who can intervene to see what thefuss is all about. So it's important to get on their cases too:

The Inspector General: 512-671-2480

Let these "watchdogs" know you are concerned that Kevin Johnson #1859887was the victim of a gas attack in Clements Unit on December 21, 2016.Numerous witnesses have signed statements confirming that he washandcuffed, in his cell, and not threatening anyone at the time he wasgassed. Furthermore, he was not allowed to shower for hours, and hiscell was never properly decontaminated, so that he was still sufferingthe effects of the gas days later. It is also essential to mention thathis property was improperly confiscated, and that he had previously beenthreatened with having this happen as retaliation for his writing aboutprison conditions. Kevin Johnson's property must be returned!

Finally, complaints should also be directed to the director of the VADOC Harold Clarke and the VA DOC's Interstate Compact Supervisor, TerryGlenn. This is because Rashid is in fact a Virginia prisoner, who hasbeen exiled from Virginia under something called the Interstate Compact,which is used by some states as a way to be rid of activist prisoners,while at the same time separating them from their families andsupporters. Please contact:

Interstate Compact director, Terry Glenn804-887-7866

Let them know that you are phoning about Kevin Johnson, a Virginiaprisoner who has been sent to Texas under the Interstate Compact. HisTexas ID # is 1859887 however his Virginia ID # is 1007485. Inform themthat Mr Johnson has been gassed by guards and has had his propertyseized as retaliation for his writing about prison conditions. These areserious legal and human rights violations, and even though they occurredin Texas, the Virginia Department of Corrections is responsible as MrJohnson is a Virginia prisoner. Despite the fact that they may ask youwho you are, and how you know about this, and for your contactinformation, they will likely simply conclude by saying that they willnot be getting back to you. Nonetheless, it is worth urging them tocontact Texas officials about this matter.

It is good to call whenever you are able. However, in order to maximizeour impact, for those who can, we are suggesting that people make theirphone calls on Thursday, January 5.

Rashid has taken considerable risks in reporting on the abuse hewitnesses at the Clements Unit, just as he has at other prisons. Indeed,he has continued to report on the violence and medical neglect to whichprisoners are subjected, despite threats from prison staff. If we, as amovement, are serious about working to resist and eventually abolish theU.S. prison system, we must do all we can to assist and protect thoselike Rashid who take it upon themselves to stand up and speak out. AsOjore Lutalo once put it, "Any movement that does not support theirpolitical internees ... is a sham movement."

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To learn more about Kevin "Rashid" Johnson, the abuses in the Texasprison system, as well as his work in founding and leading the NewAfrikan Black Panther Party-Prison Chapter, see his websiteathttp://www.rashidmod.com

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As Robert Boyle, Esq. said, "The struggle is far from over: the DOC will no doubt appeal this ruling. But a victory! Thanks Pam Africa and all the Mumia supporters and all of you."

"Everyone has to get on board to keep the pressure on. We have an opportunity here that we have never had before. We are going to do it as a unified community, everyone together." - Pam Africa

Tomorrow your phone will ring with a special message from Mumia. In it, he says, "This is indeed a serious time for me, and for us all. It is not easy to take on the state and prevail; however, it is right to do so. With your help, we may be able to prevail. This is Mumia Abu-Jamal, thanking you for supporting Prison Radio."

Today is the 406th day that Rev. Edward Pinkney of Benton Harbor, Michigan
languishes in prison doing felony time for a misdemeanor crime he did not
commit. Today is also the day that Robert McKay, a spokesperson for the
Free Rev. Pinkney campaign, gave testimony before United Nations
representatives about the plight of Rev. Pinkney at a hearing held in
Chicago. The hearing was called in order to shed light upon the
mistreatment of African-Americans in the United States and put it on an
international stage. And yet as the UN representatives and audience heard
of the injustices in the Pinkney case many gasped in disbelief and asked
with frowns on their faces, "how is this possible?" But disbelief quickly
disappeared when everyone realized these were the same feelings they had
when they first heard of Flint and we all know what happened in Flint. FREE
REV. PINKNEY NOW.

The PA Office of the Attorney General (OAG) filed legal action to remove Corey Walker's attorney, Rachel Wolkenstein, in November 2014. On Tuesday, February 9, 2016 the evidentiary hearing to terminate Wolkenstein as Corey Walker's pro hac vice lawyer continues before Judge Lawrence Clark of the Dauphin County Court of Common Pleas in Harrisburg, PA.

Walker, assisted by Wolkenstein, filed three sets of legal papers over five months in 2014 with new evidence of Walker's innocence and that the prosecution and police deliberately used false evidence to convict him of murder. Two weeks after Wolkenstein was granted pro hac vice status, the OAG moved against her and Walker.

The OAG claims that Wolkenstein's political views and prior legal representation of Mumia Abu-Jamal and courtroom arrest by the notorious Judge Albert Sabo makes it "intolerable" for her to represent Corey Walker in the courts of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Over the past fifteen months the OAG has effectively stopped any judicial action on the legal challenges of Corey Walker and his former co-defendant, Lorenzo Johnson against their convictions and sentences to life imprisonment without parole while it proceeds in its attempts to remove Wolkenstein.

This is retaliation against Corey Walker who is innocent and framed. Walker and his attorney won't stop until they thoroughly expose the police corruption and deliberate presentation of false evidence to convict Corey Walker and win his freedom.

This outrageous attack on Corey Walker's fundamental right to his lawyer of choice and challenge his conviction must cease. The evidence of his innocence and deliberate prosecutorial frame up was suppressed for almost twenty years. Corey Walker must be freed!

The Oasis Clinic in Oakland, CA, which treats patients with Hepatitis-C (HCV), demands an end to the outrageous price-gouging of Big Pharma corporations, like Gilead Sciences, which hike-up the cost for essential, life-saving medications such as the cure for the deadly Hepatitis-C virus, in order to reap huge profits. The Oasis Clinic's demand is:

Despite that extraordinary fact, he continues his battles, both in the prison for his health, and in the courts for his freedom.

Several weeks ago, Tillery filed a direct challenge to his criminal conviction, by arguing that a so-called "secret witness" was, in fact, a paid police informant who was given a get-out-of-jail-free card if he testified against Tillery.

Remember I mentioned, "paid?"

Well, yes--the witness was 'paid'--but not in dollars. He was paid in sex!

In the spring of 1984, Robert Mickens was facing decades in prison on rape and robbery charges. After he testified against Tillery, however, his 25-year sentence became 5 years: probation!

And before he testified he was given an hour and a ½ private visit with his girlfriend--at the Homicide Squad room at the Police Roundhouse. (Another such witness was given another sweetheart deal--lie on Major, and get off!)

To a prisoner, some things are more important than money. Like sex!

In a verified document written in April, 2016, Mickens declares that he lied at trial, after being coached by the DAs and detectives on the case.

He lied to get out of jail--and because he could get with his girl.

Other men have done more for less.

Major's 58-page Petition is a time machine back into a practice that was once common in Philadelphia.

Major Tillery is an innocent man. There was no evidence against Major Tillery for the 1976 poolroom shootings that left one man dead and another wounded. The surviving victim gave a statement to homicide detectives naming others—not Tillery or his co-defendant—as the shooters. Major wasn't charged until 1980, he was tried in 1985.

The only evidence at trial came from these jailhouse informants who were given sexual favors and plea deals for dozens of pending felonies for lying against Major Tillery. Both witnesses now declare their testimony was manufactured by the police and prosecution. Neither witness had personal knowledge of the shooting.

This is a case of prosecutorial misconduct and police corruption that goes to the deepest levels of rot in the Philadelphia criminal injustice system. Major Tillery deserves not just a new trial, but dismissal of the charges against him and his freedom from prison.

It cost a lot of money for Major Tillery to be able to file his new pro se PCRA petition and continue investigation to get more evidence of the state misconduct. He needs help to get lawyers to make sure this case is not ignored. Please contribute, now.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

Financial Support: Tillery's investigation is ongoing, to get this case filed has been costly and he needs funds for a legal team to fight this to his freedom!

Urge Gov. Jerry Brown to commute Kevin Cooper's death sentence. Cooper has always maintained his innocence of the 1983 quadruple murder of which he was convicted. In 2009, five federal judges signed a dissenting opinion warning that the State of California "may be about to execute an innocent man." Having exhausted his appeals in the US courts, Kevin Cooper's lawyers have turned to the Inter American Commission on Human Rights to seek remedy for what they maintain is his wrongful conviction, and the inadequate trial representation, prosecutorial misconduct and racial discrimination which have marked the case. Amnesty International opposes all executions, unconditionally.

"The State of California may be about to execute an innocent man." - Judge William A. Fletcher, 2009 dissenting opinion on Kevin Cooper's case

Kevin Cooper has been on death row in California for more than thirty years.

In 1985, Cooper was convicted of the murder of a family and their house guest in Chino Hills. Sentenced to death, Cooper's trial took place in an atmosphere of racial hatred — for example, an effigy of a monkey in a noose with a sign reading "Hang the N*****!" was hung outside the venue of his preliminary hearing.

Take action to see that Kevin Cooper's death sentence is commuted immediately.

Cooper has consistently maintained his innocence.

Following his trial, five federal judges said: "There is no way to say this politely. The district court failed to provide Cooper a fair hearing."

Since 2004, a dozen federal appellate judges have indicated their doubts about his guilt.

Tell California authorities: The death penalty carries the risk of irrevocable error. Kevin Cooper's sentence must be commuted.

In 2009, Cooper came just eight hours shy of being executed for a crime that he may not have committed. Stand with me today in reminding the state of California that the death penalty is irreversible — Kevin Cooper's sentence must be commuted immediately.

Kevin Cooper is an African-American man who was wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in 1985 for the gruesome murders of a white family in Chino Hills, California: Doug and Peggy Ryen and their daughter Jessica and their house- guest Christopher Hughes. The Ryens' 8 year old son Josh, also attacked, was left for dead but survived.

Convicted in an atmosphere of racial hatred in San Bernardino County CA, Kevin Cooper remains under a threat of imminent execution in San Quentin. He has never received a fair hearing on his claim of innocence. In a dissenting opinion in 2009, five federal judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals signed a 82 page dissenting opinion that begins: "The State of California may be about to execute an innocent man." 565 F.3d 581.

There is significant evidence that exonerates Mr. Cooper and points toward other suspects:

 The coroner who investigated the Ryen murders concluded that the murders took four minutes at most and that the murder weapons were a hatchet, a long knife, an ice pick and perhaps a second knife. How could a single person, in four or fewer minutes, wield three or four weapons, and inflict over 140 wounds on five people, two of whom were adults (including a 200 pound ex-marine) who had loaded weapons near their bedsides?

 The sole surviving victim of the murders, Josh Ryen, told police and hospital staff within hours of the murders that the culprits were "three white men." Josh Ryen repeated this statement in the days following the crimes. When he twice saw Mr. Cooper's picture on TV as the suspected attacker, Josh Ryen said "that's not the man who did it."

 Josh Ryen's description of the killers was corroborated by two witnesses who were driving near the Ryens' home the night of the murders. They reported seeing three white men in a station wagon matching the description of the Ryens' car speeding away from the direction of the Ryens' home.

 These descriptions were corroborated by testimony of several employees and patrons of a bar close to the Ryens' home, who saw three white men enter the bar around midnight the night of the murders, two of whom were covered in blood, and one of whom was wearing coveralls.

 The identity of the real killers was further corroborated by a woman who, shortly after the murders were discovered, alerted the sheriff's department that her boyfriend, a convicted murderer, left blood-spattered coveralls at her home the night of the murders. She also reported that her boyfriend had been wearing a tan t-shirt matching a tan t-shirt with Doug Ryen's blood on it recovered near the bar. She also reported that her boyfriend owned a hatchet matching the one recovered near the scene of the crime, which she noted was missing in the days following the murders; it never reappeared; further, her sister saw that boyfriend and two other white men in a vehicle that could have been the Ryens' car on the night of the murders.

Lacking a motive to ascribe to Mr. Cooper for the crimes, the prosecution claimed that Mr. Cooper, who had earlier walked away from custody at a minimum security prison, stole the Ryens' car to escape to Mexico. But the Ryens had left the keys in both their cars (which were parked in the driveway), so there was no need to kill them to steal their car. The prosecution also claimed that Mr. Cooper needed money, but money and credit cards were found untouched and in plain sight at the murder scene.

The jury in 1985 deliberated for seven days before finding Mr. Cooper guilty. One juror later said that if there had been one less piece of evidence, the jury would not have voted to convict.

The evidence the prosecution presented at trial tying Mr. Cooper to the crime scene has all been discredited… (Continue reading this document at: http://www.savekevincooper.org/_new_freekevincooperdotorg/TEST/Scripts/DataLibraries/upload/KC_FactSheet_2014.pdf)

This message from the Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal. July 2015

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CANCEL ALL STUDENT DEBT!

Sign the Petition:

http://cancelallstudentdebt.com/?code=kos

Dear President Obama, Senators, and Members of Congress:

Americans now owe $1.3 trillion in student debt. Eighty-six percent of that money is owed to the United States government. This is a crushing burden for more than 40 million Americans and their families.

I urge you to take immediate action to forgive all student debt, public and private.

Show your support for Lorenzo by wearing one of our beautiful new campaign t-shirts! If you donate $20 (or more!) to the Campaign to Free Lorenzo Johnson, we will send you a t-shirt, while supplies last. Make sure to note your size and shipping address in the comment section on PayPal, or to include this information with a check.

Here is a message from Lorenzo's wife, Tazza Salvatto:

My husband is innocent, FREE HIM NOW!

Lorenzo Johnson is a son, husband, father and brother. His injustice has been a continued nightmare for our family. Words cant explain our constant pain, I wish it on no one. Not even the people responsible for his injustice.

This is about an innocent man who has spent 20 years and counting in prison. The sad thing is Lorenzo's prosecution knew he was innocent from day one. These are the same people society relies on to protect us.

Not only have these prosecutors withheld evidence of my husbands innocence by NEVER turning over crucial evidence to his defense prior to trial. Now that Lorenzo's innocence has been revealed, the prosecution refuses to do the right thing. Instead they are "slow walking" his appeal and continuing their malicious prosecution.

When my husband or our family speak out about his injustice, he's labeled by his prosecutor as defaming a career cop and prosecutor. If they are responsible for Lorenzo's wrongful conviction, why keep it a secret??? This type of corruption and bullying of families of innocent prisoners to remain silent will not be tolerated.

Our family is not looking for any form of leniency. Lorenzo is innocent, we want what is owed to him. JUSTICE AND HIS IMMEDIATE FREEDOM!!!

WASHINGTON — President Trump is expected to sign an executive order on Tuesday aimed at rolling back one of former President Barack Obama's major environmental regulations to protect American waterways, but it will have almost no immediate legal effect, according to two people familiar with the White House plans.

An advance copy of the order was viewed by The New York Times on Monday. It is the first of two announcements expected to direct Mr. Pruitt to begin dismantling the major pillars of Mr. Obama's environmental legacy.

In the coming week, Mr. Trump is also expected to sign a similar order instructing Mr. Pruitt to begin the process of withdrawing and revising Mr. Obama's signature 2015 climate-change regulation, aimed at curbing emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases from coal-fired power plants.

Because both of those rules were finalized under existing laws long before Mr. Obama left office, they cannot be simply undone with a stroke of the president's pen, legal experts in both the Obama and Trump White Houses have said.

"The executive order has no legal significance at all," said Richard L. Revesz, a professor of environmental law at New York University. "It's like the president calling Scott Pruitt and telling him to start the legal proceedings. It does the same thing as a phone call or a tweet. It just signals that the president wants it to happen."

Still, Mr. Pruitt, who was confirmed by the Senate to his new position this month, is expected to enthusiastically dive in to the lengthy task of undoing major environmental rules on clean water, climate change and air pollution. In his former job as attorney general of Oklahoma, Mr. Pruitt led or took part in 14 lawsuits intended to block the E.P.A.'s major regulations, including the clean water and climate rules that he is now charged with dismantling.

Speaking over the weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Mr. Pruitt told an audience, to applause, "I think there are some regulations that in the near term need to be rolled back in a very aggressive way," and he said those rollbacks would probably begin this week.

The clean water rule, completed by the Obama administration in spring 2015, was issued under the 1972 Clean Water Act. It gives the federal government broad authority to limit pollution in major bodies of water, like Chesapeake Bay, the Mississippi River and Puget Sound, as well as in streams and wetlands that drain into those larger waters.

Two Supreme Court decisions related to clean water protection, in 2001 and 2006, created legal confusion about whether the federal government had the authority to regulate the smaller streams and headwaters and about other water sources such as wetlands.

The Obama administration's water rule, put forth jointly by the E.P.A. and the Army Corps of Engineers, was intended to clarify that authority, allowing the government to once again limit pollution in those smaller bodies of water. Environmentalists have praised the rule, calling it an important step that will lead to significantly cleaner natural bodies of water and healthier drinking water.

But it has come under fierce attack from farmers, property developers, fertilizer and pesticide makers, oil and gas producers, golf-course owners and other business interests that contend that it will stifle economic growth and intrude on property owners' rights.

The American Farm Bureau Federation, which has led the legal fight against Mr. Obama's rule, contends that it places an undue burden on farmers in particular, who may find themselves required to apply for federal permits to use fertilizer near ditches and streams on their property that may eventually flow into larger rivers.

On the campaign trail, Mr. Trump won cheers from rural audiences when he vowed to roll back the rule.

Despite the controversy over the regulation, it has yet to be put into effect. A federal court delayed it as judges review the legal challenges against it. Mr. Trump's executive order directs Attorney General Jeff Sessions to review the challenges and to consider asking the court to delay a decision on the matter until a new regulation is released.

That could take several years. To follow the law, Mr. Pruitt will have to withdraw the current Obama administration water regulation and craft a new version of the rule, along with a justification as to why it would be legally superior to the earlier one. That would be subject to a public comment period before it is finalized, and it could face new lawsuits afterward.

Either way, the fight over who controls the nation's waterways is expected to end up in front of the Supreme Court. In directing Mr. Pruitt's efforts to craft the new water regulation, Mr. Trump's order asks him to consider a 2006 review of the rule that was written by Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court justice who died last year. Justice Scalia, who was long the court's most prominent conservative voice, offered a narrow and tightly constrained interpretation of what would constitute a federally protected body of water. Based on his interpretation, the number of federally protected waterways under Mr. Trump's order would probably be far less than the 60 percent covered by the Obama administration.

Also on Tuesday, Mr. Trump plans to sign an executive order intended to strengthen the federal office in charge of coordinating support for the nation's historically black colleges and universities. That office has for years been housed in the Education Department, but it will now move to the White House, officials said.

Aides to the president, who requested anonymity to discuss the executive order before it had been officially announced, said Mr. Trump hoped the move would mean more support for the colleges. They said the president also hoped to enlist the colleges in efforts to help urban centers in America.

WASHINGTON — President Trump put both political parties on notice Monday that he intends to slash spending on many of the federal government's most politically sensitive programs — relating to education, the environment, science and poverty — to protect the economic security of retirees and to shift billions more to the armed forces.

The proposal to increase military spending by $54 billion and cut nonmilitary programs by the same amount was unveiled by White House officials as they prepared the president's plans for next year's federal budget. Aides to the president said final decisions about Medicare and Social Security would not be made until later in the year, when he announces his full budget. But Sean Spicer, his spokesman, cited Mr. Trump's campaign commitments about protecting those programs and vowed that "he's going to keep his word to the American people."

In effect, Mr. Trump appears determined to take sides in a generational struggle between older, sicker Americans who depend on the entitlement programs, and their younger, poorer counterparts whose livelihoods are shaped by the domestic programs likely to see steep cuts.

He also set up a battle for control of Republican Party ideology with House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, who for years has staked his policy-making reputation on the argument that taming the budget deficit without tax increases would require that Congress change, and cut, the programs that swallow the bulk of the government's spending — Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

"I don't know how you take $54 billion out without wholesale taking out entire departments," said Bill Hoagland, a longtime Republican budget aide in the Senate and now a senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center. "You need to control it in the area of the entitlement programs, which he's taken off the table. It is a proposal, I dare say, that will be dead on arrival even with a Republican Congress."

Speaking to governors at the White House, Mr. Trump said his spending demands would be at the core of the speech he gives Tuesday night to a joint session of Congress. "This budget follows through on my promise to keep Americans safe," he said, calling it a "public safety and national security" budget that will send a "message to the world in these dangerous times of American strength, security and resolve."

In the first part of the speech, Mr. Trump will recount "promises made and promises kept," said the aides, who requested anonymity during a briefing with reporters. The rest of the speech will focus on how he will help people with their problems and how he intends to protect the nation.

The president's budget proposals — which were short on detail but are said to exempt not just Medicare and Social Security but also veterans' benefits and law enforcement efforts — would lead to deep reductions in federal programs that touch millions of lives. The White House signaled that it would begin with agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, the Internal Revenue Service and social safety-net programs.

A budget with no entitlement cuts and one that does not balance most likely has no chance of passing the House, and could be rejected by Senate Republicans as well. Mr. Trump's proposals are too far to the right in terms of domestic cuts and too far to the left in terms of balance. Their failure could have practical implications for the White House.

If Congress fails to pass a budget blueprint for the fiscal year that begins in October, Mr. Trump's promise to drastically rewrite the tax code could also die, since the president was counting on that budget resolution to include special parliamentary language that would shield his tax cuts from a Democratic filibuster. Without it, any tax legislation would have to be bipartisan enough to clear the Senate with 60 votes.

But beyond legislative considerations, the fate of Mr. Trump's proposal will go a long way toward determining how significantly his brand of economic populism has changed Republican orthodoxy.

Mr. Trump repeatedly said during the campaign that Republican promises to transform Medicare and slash entitlement spending were the reason the party lost the White House in 2012, helpfully name-checking Mr. Ryan, who sat at the bottom of the ticket that year, in his analysis. Social Security, health care and net interest now comprise nearly 60 percent of all federal spending, and that figure is expected to soar to 82 percent over the next 10 years.

"Paul Ryan's budget plans with cuts to Social Security and Medicare are not that popular with most voters, and what helped elect Donald Trump was the promise not to cut benefits and programs," said Douglas Elmendorf, the recently departed director of the Congressional Budget Office and current dean of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. "That is an unresolved tension."

White House officials said the broad outlines of a spending plan represented the logical culmination of Mr. Trump's efforts to make good on his campaign pledges to prune what he considers wasteful government spending even as he expands what he considers an underfunded military.

"It will show the president is keeping his promises and doing exactly what he said he was going to do," said Mick Mulvaney, the president's budget director. "We are taking his words and turning them into policies and dollars."

Mr. Trump's advisers said aid to foreign governments, which makes up a tiny fraction of federal spending, was one such target.

The budget for the I.R.S., which was the target of Republican criticism during Barack Obama's administration, would be slashed by 14 percent, according to documents obtained by The New York Times. The Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, which provides grants for community banks and local development, would be all but eliminated.

The White House blueprint calls for a 24 percent cut to the E.P.A.'s budget, according to a person who had seen the document but was not authorized to speak on the record. That would amount to a reduction of about $2 billion from the agency's annual budget of about $8.1 billion, reducing its spending to levels not seen since Ronald Reagan's presidency.

But it is far from clear whether Congress will approve such steep cuts in popular programs.

While congressional Republicans have long targeted the E.P.A.'s regulatory authority, they are also aware that about half the agency's annual budget is passed through to popular state-level programs, like converting abandoned industrial sites into sports stadiums and other public facilities, which lawmakers of both parties are loath to cut. And most of the agency's federal office spending goes toward funding programs that are required by existing laws. Last year, even as congressional Republicans railed against the Obama administration's E.P.A. regulations, they proposed cutting only $291 million from the agency's budget.

Environmental advocates denounced the proposed cuts, saying they would devastate environmental protection and public health programs while doing little to increase national security.

"The assault on human health begins now with President Trump's plan to slash the E.P.A.'s resources, which are vital to protecting Americans' drinking water and air from pollution," said Scott Faber, vice president of government affairs at the Environmental Working Group.

But the information to emerge about the budget raises more questions than it answers.

Democrats, of course, will be no friend, either.

"Democrats will make crystal clear the misplaced priorities of the administration and the Republican majority," said Representative Nita M. Lowey of New York, the highest-ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, "and we will fight tooth and nail to protect services and investments that are critical to hard-working American families and communities across the country."

But the budget may be the most striking example in Mr. Trump's young presidency of the ways in which he is challenging the orthodoxy of his own party. Since the start of his insurgent campaign, Mr. Trump has opposed the Republican Party's long-held positions on a range of policies, including free trade, how to deal with Russia and the future of government entitlement programs.

Republicans in Congress had hoped that the influence of the two former Republican House members in Mr. Trump's cabinet — Tom Price, head of health and human services, and Mr. Mulvaney — would have led to new conclusions about the need to address entitlement programs that are swelling drastically with baby boomers' retirement.

Instead, Mr. Trump appears intent on extracting the savings he needs for military spending from the one part of the budget already most squeezed, domestic discretionary spending.

Southeastern Australia has suffered through a series of brutal heat waves over the past two months, with temperatures reaching a scorching 113 degrees Fahrenheit in some parts of the state of New South Wales.

"It was nothing short of awful," said Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, of the Climate Change Research Center at the University of New South Wales, in Sydney. "In Australia, we're used to a little bit of heat. But this was at another level."

So Dr. Perkins-Kirkpatrick, who studies climate extremes, did what comes naturally: She looked to see whether there was a link between the heat and human-driven climate change.

Her analysis, conducted with a loose-knit group of researchers called World Weather Attribution, was made public on Thursday. Their conclusion was that climate change made maximum temperatures like those seen in January and February at least 10 times more likely than a century ago, before significant greenhouse gas emissions from human activity started warming the planet.

Looked at another way, that means that the kind of soaring temperatures expected to occur in New South Wales once every 500 years on average now may occur once every 50 years. What is more, the researchers found that if climate change continued unabated, such maximum temperatures may occur on average every five years.

For the overall 2016-17 summer in New South Wales, the researchers say, climate change made the hot average temperatures — which set records for the state — at least 50 times more likely than in the past.

The findings are the latest in what has become a growing field: studies that try to assess the influence of climate change on extreme weather as soon as possible. The idea is to offer scientific analyses of heat waves, floods and other events while people are still talking about them, and to counter the spread of misinformation, intentional or not, about the impact of global warming.

Climate scientists have long said that climate change should bring an increase in extreme events like dry spells and heat waves. Because warmth causes more evaporation and warmer air holds more moisture, climate change should also lead to more intense and frequent storms.

Studies have shown that these effects are occurring on a broad scale. But the natural variability of weather makes looking at individual events more difficult.

World Weather Attribution, which is coordinated by Climate Central, a research organization in Princeton, N.J., is one of a number of groups doing rapid analysis. Among other events, they have looked at flooding in Germany and France last May; high temperatures in the Arctic in November and December; and an usually strong storm that hit northern Britain in 2015.

Not all of attribution studies have found a climate-change link. In general, studies of heat waves tend to produce the clearest signal of the influence, or not, of global warming.

Australian heat waves have been examined in the past, most recently in several studies that showed a clear link between climate change and a period of torrid weather in 2013. David Karoly, a scientist at the University of Melbourne, was involved in one of the studies, which took more than six months to produce.

"That was considered very rapid at the time," Dr. Karoly said.

As a member of World Weather Attribution, Dr. Karoly helped with the study of the recent heat waves, which took about two weeks.

A big difference between the two studies is in the use of computer climate models — both of the current atmosphere with its greenhouse gas emissions and of a hypothetical atmosphere as if those emissions had never occurred and climate change was not happening.

For the older study, as for most attribution studies in the recent past, the models were run over and over again, which took months. The newer, rapid studies use models that have already been run, extracting data as needed.

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4) Across the Country, a Republican Push to Rein In ProtestersBy MITCH SMITH and MICHAEL WINES MARCH 2, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/02/us/when-does-protest-cross-a-line-some-states-aim-to-
toughen-laws.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fus&action=click&contentCollection=
us&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=4&pgtype=sectionfront

BISMARCK, N.D. — About an hour after some 200 police officers cleared the last demonstrators against the Dakota Access Pipeline from their sprawling encampment on the North Dakota prairie last week, Gov. Doug Burgum signed into law four bills aimed at making it easier to control such protests.

With a few strokes of a pen, he placed the state in the vanguard of an emerging backlash by conservative forces against political and social advocates who see demonstrations — however unruly — as free speech protected by the Constitution.

In a season rife with demonstrations over immigration, pipelines, abortion, women's rights and more, Republican legislators in at least 16 states have filed bills intended to make protests more orderly or to toughen penalties against ones that go awry. Republicans in two other states, Massachusetts and North Carolina, have said they will file protest-related bills.

Those numbers include only bills whose sponsors have specifically linked them to protests, said Jonathan Griffin, a policy analyst who tracks the measures at the National Conference of State Legislatures. How many will be enacted is unclear; a few already have been pronounced dead in committee.

Some sociologists and legal experts say the bills are in line with a general trend toward tougher treatment of protesters after especially disruptive demonstrations like the Occupy Wall Street movement in Manhattan and the 2014 violence in Ferguson, Mo.

But interviews and news reports suggest that some of the measures are either backed by supporters of President Trump or are responses to demonstrations against him and his policies. After a Nashville motorist struck safety workers who were escorting anti-Trump protesters at a crosswalk, a Tennessee state representative introduced legislation that would relieve motorists of any liability should they accidentally hit someone deliberately blocking a street.

An Iowa bill, filed after about 100 anti-Trump protesters closed Interstate 80 near Iowa City, would make blocking high-speed roads a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and $7,500 in fines. Similar legislation in Mississippi would impose a fine of up to $10,000. In Washington State, a Republican senator who helped run Mr. Trump's campaign there filed legislation that would make it a felony to commit "economic terrorism," defined as intentionally breaking the law to intimidate private citizens or to obstruct economic activity.

A Minnesota bill, responding to protests over the police shooting last year of an African-American man in a suburb of St. Paul, would allow cities to sue demonstrators who violate the law for the cost of policing their protests. And in North Carolina, a legislator promised to propose a measure making it illegal to "threaten, intimidate or retaliate" against state officials after hecklers denounced Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican who lost a re-election bid in November.

Those two measures and perhaps others may face constitutional hurdles, said Kevin F. O'Neill, a scholar of protest law at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law at Cleveland State University. "There's a First Amendment right of access to sidewalks, public squares and even public streets," he said. "Heckling is a well-protected First Amendment right."

But demonstrators who fail to inform authorities of protest plans and locations and to secure a permit are on far shakier legal ground, he added. In those cases, actions like blocking a street would most likely be subject to prosecution. Most of the proposals appear to address protests that lack permits.

In many cases, the bills' sponsors emphasize that they are trying to improve public safety or keep order, not squelch free speech.

"We support the First Amendment altogether and want people to get out and do what they want," said State Senator George B. Gainer, Republican of Florida, who has proposed legislation that would raise fines for blocking traffic and, like the Tennessee measure, indemnify drivers who accidentally hit protesters. "But they shouldn't endanger themselves or others."

Some free-speech advocates, however, have their doubts. "There are already laws on the books in states that say if you break something or harm somebody, you're going to be prosecuted," said Patrick F. Gillham, a sociologist at Western Washington University who studies protests. "They're troubling. They potentially have a chilling effect on protest."

In Georgia, where the State Senate has passed legislation toughening the penalty for obstructing traffic, Worth Bishop, a volunteer for the anti-Trump movement Indivisible, said the proliferation of protest-related bills took aim at the First Amendment.

"These laws are clearly designed to abridge the right of the people to lawful assembly," Mr. Bishop said. He called the proposals "intimidation from the right," saying there was scant demand for the measures from the police.

In North Dakota, legislators rejected a bill similar to Tennessee's that would have shielded motorists. But they enacted measures that expand the criminal trespass law, raise penalties for riot offenses, criminalize wearing masks and hoods while violating the law, and make it easier for out-of-state police officers to assist local authorities during events like protests.

Kyle Kirchmeier, the sheriff in Morton County, N.D., where the main protest camp was, cast the measures as needed additions to existing laws that were insufficient to contain the huge anti-pipeline demonstrations. "As this went along," he said, "there was definitely areas in the law that we've seen that weren't fitting, especially when people tie themselves to equipment and that type of thing."

But demonstrators and civil liberties advocates sense a dark ulterior motive, and describe the new North Dakota measures as thinly veiled attempts to quell dissent and criminalize protest. The bills passed the Republican-dominated legislature with large majorities, and took effect immediately after the governor signed them.

"They're looking for clever ways to send chilling effects," said Chase Iron Eyes, a prominent pipeline protester and recent congressional candidate who was charged with inciting a riot after a February arrest. "The state will try to devise ways to squash opposition and chill the will of people who are willing to face risks to their liberty to further their cause."

Opposition to the Dakota Access pipeline led to a remarkable mobilization of activists, many of them Native American, who spent months camped out demanding a halt to construction.

The gathering drew international headlines, prompted violent clashes with law enforcement and led to the mobilization of the National Guard and the installation of razor wire and roadblocks on rural byways.

In North Dakota, a rural state with a large energy industry where gatherings of such magnitude were unprecedented, the protests exhausted police resources and brought unwelcome scrutiny.

"You have something that's chewing up tens of millions of dollars of extra law enforcement cost that we don't have," said Mr. Burgum, a Republican who took office in December when tensions were at a fever pitch, and who ordered the evacuation of the main camp last week.

Mr. Burgum, a first-time politician, earned praise for taking a more hands-on approach in meeting with tribal officials and protesters, and for arranging for the state to cover the cost of bus tickets and meals for out-of-town demonstrators who needed help getting home.

Kelly Armstrong, a state senator and the chairman of the North Dakota Republican Party, said the political environment in the state was sympathetic to law enforcement, and concerned about the monetary and reputational cost of the protests.

"For the most part, everyone in North Dakota was about ready for this to be over about two weeks after this started," Mr. Armstrong said. "The politics of it, there's not really an upside to being a pro-DAPL-protester politician," he added, using initials for the pipeline.

But in that context, civil liberties advocates see the new protest-inspired laws as especially dangerous. Jennifer Cook, policy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of North Dakota, said there was a "concentrated effort to criminalize protests" in the state and that the new laws were "masked as ways to protect public safety."

"We know that the bills were inspired by the events down in Morton County," Ms. Cook said, "and that they are focused on preventing protesters from protesting, essentially."

The nation's largest patient advocacy groups are on the front lines of some of the biggest health care debates, from the soaring costs of prescription drugs to whether new medicines are being approved quickly enough.

But while their voices carry weight because they represent the interests of sick patients, a new study has found that more than 80 percent of them accept funding from drug and medical-device companies. For some groups, the donations from industry accounted for more than half of their annual income, and in nearly 40 percent of cases, industry executives sit on governing boards, according to the study, which is published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Nearly "nine out of every 10 are taking money," said Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, an oncologist and vice provost at the University of Pennsylvania. He is one of the authors of the study, which looked at the top 104 nonprofit patient advocacy groups that reported more than $7.5 million in annual revenues for 2014. "I think that is not well known — I think that is a shock."

Dr. Emanuel, who previously advised President Obama on health care, said patient groups were far less transparent about conflicts of interest than medical researchers, who are now pushed to disclose ties to the drug and device industries when they write articles and make public appearances.

"Compared to what researchers are doing, this is pathetic," he said. And yet "they wrap themselves in white as if they're pure."

Patient groups said they have taken steps in recent years to improve their financial disclosures and conflict-of-interest policies, and rejected the suggestion that they were influenced by their corporate donors.

"Patient advocacy organizations are driven by their missions — putting patients first," said Marc M. Boutin, the chief executive of the National Health Council, an umbrella group for patient-advocacy groups. "To say otherwise negates the extraordinary work achieved by these organizations on behalf of their patients." The health council had previously said that pharmaceutical companies accounted for 62 percent of the council's $3.5 million budget in 2015.

The study also found a wide disparity in how the groups disclose the donations, making it difficult for members of the public to know how significant the industry funding is. The study authors gathered their data by examining the websites of the nonprofit groups, as well as their tax filings and annual reports from 2014.

The researchers pointed to the National Hemophilia Foundation as one group that is vague about its funding because, although it lists corporate donors, it only discloses donation ranges. Drug makers contributed a range from $8.5 million to $14 million of the group's $16.8 million annual budget in 2014, the year researchers studied. Its top donors, Baxter, Biogen and Novo Nordisk, make products used by people with hemophilia; each donated between $2 million and $3 million, the researchers said.

The American Diabetes Association, by contrast, reported receiving more than $28 million in industry funding in 2014, or about 15 percent of its budget, but provided detailed disclosures of which companies donated, and how much, the study authors said.

In a statement, the hemophilia foundation said it never allows its corporate sponsors to influence its decision-making, and that it also does not endorse specific products or favor certain companies. It declined to provide precise dollar amounts of contributions from companies, saying that the foundation complied with "accepted financial reporting standards."

The study's authors said transparency could be improved by requiring the drug and device industries to report how much they donate to patient groups, much like they are already required to do with doctors.

That was applauded by other critics of the drug industry. "I think sunshine is an excellent disinfectant," said David Mitchell, the founder of a new group, Patients for Affordable Drugs, that seeks to lower drug prices, and does not take funding from industry groups. He was not involved in the study.

Mr. Mitchell said patient groups often do not disclose that they take industry funds when they testify before Congress or government agencies, or when they disseminate educational information to patients.

Many have also been silent on the issue of rising drug prices, even as the issue has enraged patients, who have been increasingly exposed to the prices that pharmaceutical companies set as insurers have asked them to pay a greater share of their drug costs. Last summer, patients and their families loudly protested the skyrocketing price of EpiPens, though the movement gathered steam on social media rather than through traditional patient-advocacy groups.

And a year ago, for example, a representative for the National Psoriasis Foundation did not disclose that her group receives at least 40 percent of its annual revenues from drug companies when she testified before the North Carolina state legislature on an unsuccessful measure supported by the pharmaceutical industry that would have limited insurers' ability to block coverage of certain drugs. Similarly, the hemophilia foundation did not disclose its pharmaceutical ties when it took the industry's side in 2015 in a letter to the Food and Drug Administration over the issue of biosimilars, which are cheaper alternatives to complex biological drugs.

"In the absence of disclosure," Mr. Mitchell said, "those policy makers or patients are unable to make informed judgments about the motives of the information being given, and the credibility of the information."

Randy Beranek, president and chief executive of the psoriasisfoundation, said he did not see a conflict of interest because both the foundation and pharmaceutical companies are seeking to help serve patients.

"Our interests all intersect at some point, and that's at the patient," he said.

In the case of the North Carolina proposal, Mr. Beranek acknowledged that his group sides with the drug industry on some issues but said, "it's a coincidence that it's an important policy issue to them, but to us, it's in the patient interest."

Holly Campbell, a spokeswoman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, an industry trade organization, said its members did not expect patient groups to agree with them on every issue. "We work with many organizations with which we have disagreements on public policy issues, including on prescription medicine costs, but believe engagement and dialogue are critical," she said.

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6) Duterte May Be Guilty of Crimes Against Humanity, Rights Group SaysBy FELIPE VILLAMOR and MIKE IVESMARCH 2, 2017https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/02/world/asia/rodrigo-duterte-human-rights-watch-philippines.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fworld&action=click&contentCollection=world&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=8&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0

MANILA — Human Rights Watch said on Thursday that President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines may have committed crimes against humanity by inciting killings during his bloody antidrug campaign.

Thousands of people have been killed by the police or by vigilantes since Mr. Duterte became president in June, and rights groups say the police may have ordered the extrajudicial killings of drug dealers and users, a charge that officials have denied.

In a report released on Thursday, Human Rights Watch examined 32 deaths from October to January, all involving the Philippine National Police. Police reports asserted that officers had committed the killings in self-defense, but witnesses characterized them as “coldblooded murders of unarmed drug suspects in custody,” the rights group’s study said.

“We think there’s a very strong case to be made in front of the I.C.C. that crimes against humanity have been committed,” Elaine Pearson, the Australia director at Human Rights Watch, said by telephone, referring to the International Criminal Court. She said the first step should be parallel investigations into Mr. Duterte’s antidrug campaign by the United Nations and by the Philippine Justice Department.

In a statement on Thursday, Ernesto Abella, a spokesman for Mr. Duterte, said the report’s allegations were baseless.

“A war on criminality is not a war on humanity,” he said. “On the contrary, it is a war precisely to protect humanity from a modern-day evil. To say otherwise is to undermine society’s legitimate desire to be free from fear and to pander to the interests of the criminals.”

The Philippines is a member of the International Criminal Court. In October, the court’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, said in a statement that she was “deeply concerned” about reports of extrajudicial killings in the country.

Ms. Bensouda said the killings could fall under the international court’s jurisdiction “if they are committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population pursuant to a state policy to commit such an attack.”

But Romel Bagares, a rights lawyer at the Center for International Law in Manila, said in an interview on Thursday that Philippine law appears to grant the president immunity from prosecution while in office.

Even though the International Criminal Court encourages domestic courts to prosecute crimes against humanity, “it may not be helpful at this point to immediately raise the I.C.C.’s jurisdiction as a trump card,” Mr. Bagares added. “The threshold has to be established by documenting the relevant cases, and filing the cases in Philippine courts, if only to show that there is a failure or an unwillingness to prosecute on the part of the state.”

It is unlikely that Mr. Duterte would face domestic prosecution while president. His allies control both houses of Congress, and his justice secretary, Vitaliano Aguirre II, is one of his old fraternity brothers.

Last week, Mr. Aguirre oversaw the arrest of Senator Leila de Lima, the chief critic of Mr. Duterte’s bloody antidrug campaign, on charges that she took bribes from imprisoned drug traffickers.

Ms. de Lima chaired a Senate panel last year that heard testimony from a professed hit man who said he belonged to a death squad that Mr. Duterte had overseen while serving as mayor of Davao City. Ms. de Lima has denied the charges against her, describing them as political persecution.

The U.S. government already spends $600 billion dollars a year on its military—more money than the next seven biggest spenders combined, including China and Russia.

On Monday, February 27, 2017, the White House said it would request $54 billion more in military spending for next year. That increase alone is roughly the size of the entire annual military budget of the United Kingdom, the fifth-largest spending country, and it’s more than 80 percent of Russia’s entire military budget in 2015.

If Congress were to follow Trump’s blueprint, the U.S. military budget could account for nearly 40 percent of global military spending next year. The U.S. would be outspending Russia by a margin of greater than nine-to-one.

At a meeting of U.S. governors on Monday, Trump described his forthcoming budget proposal as “a public safety and national security budget.”

U.S. military spending has been at permanent wartime levels since the 2001 terror attacks, despite the significant drawdowns in Afghanistan and Iraq under President Obama. Spending has declined since the wars were at their peak in 2010, but U.S. military spending in 2015 remains at 190 percent of what it was before 9/11, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, or SIPRI, a leading tracker of weapons and defense spending.

Throughout his campaign, Trump criticized bloated weapons contracts and the overall cost of wars in the Middle East. But he also promised to make the military “strong again,” pledging to build 70 new warships and increase the number of troops in the Army to the same high levels as during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Trump has also called for the U.S. to “greatly expand” its nuclear weapons capabilities, signaling a potential willingness to expand a $1 trillion modernization effort Obama started that was already widely criticized by budget critics as unaffordable.

The White House did not elaborate on how the Pentagon would spend the extra money. CNNreported that the White House was planning dramatic cuts to the EPA and foreign aid budgets. Both are tiny components of the federal budget and are unlikely to add up to anywhere near $54 billion.

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